Verification of Thomas More’s Utopia serving as eponym and paragon for the literary genre of utopian fiction using the example of Tommaso Campanella’s The City of the Sun

Essay from the year 2010 in the subject English - History of Literature, Eras, grade: 1,0, Humboldt-University of Berlin (Anglistik/Amerikanistik), course: English Literary and Cultural History: Texts, Periods, Theories, language: English, abstract: In the following paper I will discuss the role of Thomas More’s work Utopia for the literary genre of utopian fiction. I will explain that the novel not only served as an eponym, but also as a model for the following literary works of utopian fiction. To prove the importance of Utopia in this regard, I will explain the definition of a utopia and the elements that make up the literary genre of utopian fiction. I will further compare selected structural and thematic aspects of Utopia and Tommaso Campanella’s utopia The City of the Sun and show the influence the earlier work had on the latter. In addition to that, I will finally discuss how several differences in these and other utopian novels can be explained.